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WHY YOU SHOULD BE TELEMARKETING AND COLD-CALLING

Telemarketing and cold-calling is still one of the most effective ways to generate quality leads and help raise brand awareness. It’s direct, measurable, two-way, flexible and offers great ROI. While managers felt telesales calls at home were one of the most annoying forms of advertising, they felt telesales calls at work were one of the least annoying. They expect to receive sales calls at work. 90% feel it’s effective at lead nuture and 60% feel it’s very effective. Telemarketing, email marketing and events provided the best quality leads. 70% of B2B sales involves human interaction, either telemarketing or in person. So how do you make the most of telemarketing and cold-calling?

Define your buyer persona. Determine who your ideal customer is. What industries are they in? Where are they located? What is their size? The more you target them, the more effective your campaign.

Develop lead lists to call. Calling more prequalified, predisposed leads will increase your chances of success. Develop lead sources of prospects from sources where they are already buying what you’re selling. Lead sources that target your ideal customer are good lead sources. You can buy inexpensive lists from Info USA. You can buy lists based on industry, location and size. The Phoenix Business Journal publishes the annual Book of Lists. It has over 200 lists of the 25 top companies in over 200 industries including executive’s names and contact info. Trade publications in different industries and other types of publications are good sources of leads. Any source that provides you with your ideal target customers and their contact info is a good source. You could also do Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn searches. Communities on Google+ and groups on Facebook and LinkedIn are also good sources. Invest time collating rich, relevant data to reduce bad, unmatched or irrelevant data. Bad, unmatched or irrelevant data does not meet your target profile. As bad data increases to over 70%, positive outcomes of responses, opportunities and leads decrease by 30%. More relevant data lead to more relevant conversations. More relevant conversations lead to more engaged decision makers, increasing response rates up to 800%!

Consistency and perseverance of campaigns are imperative. Optimum opportunities per day are reached after 14 weeks. Short campaigns like short anything doesn’t work. Again, Rome wasn’t built in a day. On average, it takes over 80 calls to dozens of companies to create an opportunity. Ofcourse, this varies depending on the proposition, order value, market sector and target audience. Sales is a long process. No doesn’t always mean no. Try to over the objections to close the deal now or determine a reasonable time for follow-up. It usually takes over 5 calls to the same prospect to close the deal. You need to effectively get past gatekeepers and talk to decision makers. Don’t use a script. Quality sales come from constructive and fluid conversations. Ask intelligent, open-ended questions. It will establish your credibility. It will also uncover business pain points to offer the opportunity to discuss benefits and solutions. Do not ask closing questions that can be answered yes or no. Use the B.A.N.T. framework. Check for Budget, Authority, Need and Timescale. Telemarketing is most effective as part of an integrated marketing campaign. Have well produced marketing material to send if necessary or direct them to a website with the material on it.

Monitor your performance. There are plenty of lead tracking and CRM platforms available to monitor the sales cycle from first call to close. Analyze the call to lead ratio, the number of calls to closing ratio, the length of the sales cycle from the lead generation to close and the cost per lead versus the ROI. Make changes and improvements as needed. Test various lead sources, lists and approaches.

So now you know why and how to successfully telemarket and cold-call. Are you doing that? Why not? I look forward to taking your call and remember to take mine.